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Comment by neaden | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I think Magnus is making a mistake conflating two things. It is totally fine to think that Nieman should have been punished more for online cheating, but combining it with his accusation of cheating at the Sinquefield Cup come off as sour grapes. Watching the Crypto Cup there was obviously no love lost between the two of them but they played each other, it's not until Magnus losses to Hans (which based on their rating had about a 5% chance of happening) that this refusal to play happens.

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How accurate are those rating calculations? Is it really "Hans vs Magnus will be 1 vs 19 win rate" or is it something else?

I would assume that I'd have absolutely no chance of winning against either even with a handicap.

They are pretty accurate, though of course when you are dealing with the person at the very top it's going to be hard to say how accurate it is. I think broadly though most experts agree that Hans beating Magnus was an unlikely but possible ting to happen. For comparison a 1400 rated player, which is someone who plays and studies a decent amount of chess but isn't devoted, would have a 0.0000014% chance of beating Magnus.

"So you're telling me there is a chance!"

I think as the skill differential becomes greater you have a better chance of identifying where the "master" screwed up allowing the neophyte to win. But it sounds like Hans and Carlsen are too close in skill (at least in this game) to identify a flaw in Carlsen's play that was able to be exploited.

And perhaps Hans went in expecting to lose and played loose and free and surprised himself with a win.

Also, it is likely that Hans is higher rated than he is, which would make his chances better. Chess rating is earned so you can be underrated.

I doubt they are very predictive in those rating bands. Based on a quick Google, since 2011, Magnus has lost a total of 20 games as white, mostly against much higher rated opponents than Hans. It had been almost 2 years since he lost as white, against Levon.

It's even less than 5% since Magnus had whites.

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